Hard at Work Box Set

Carey’d Away Carey Thornton leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on the registration counter set up inside the Jefferson Ballroom of the Omni Hotel and Conference Center, folded his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. There had been a sign-up sheet for hotel staff who wanted to work the Richmond Annual Comic Book Convention, but for the life of him, Carey couldn’t remember writing his name on it. Sure, it was overtime, but was it really worth it? After staying out way too late the night before with his friends, he didn’t think anything was worth waking up for this morning. “It should be illegal to make me work this early,” he muttered to anyone who cared to listen. “You’re not working,” his friend Bill Jenkins pointed out. Though he had been one of the friends out with Carey the previous evening, Bill was too damn hyper to be tired. He loved comics, lived for them, and even sported a Dawn T-shirt today, crisp and black with a voluptuous redhead dressed in green lingerie draped across his chest. Carey didn’t see what Bill saw in pictures like that. As far as Carey knew, Bill liked guys, but sometimes? Sometimes he had to wonder about him. To be honest, Bill was the one who was supposed to be working the registration counter, not him. Carey had pissed off the project coordinator, Shonda Murray, a few days before and ended up with maintenance detail. His job was to check the booths and make sure they were stable. He also had to keep an eye out for OSHA hazards, whatever those might be. Carey thought that might mean no frayed electrical cords or spilled drinks or kicked up carpets, s**t like that. Trouble was, Carey didn’t feel like doing that. At the moment he didn’t feel like doing anything—he was still feeling the club and the music beating through his head. He wondered if it were too late to call in sick. Bill squatted over a box full of blank nametags and pens and rolls of door prize tickets, things that had to be set out across the table in a fairly organized fashion before the show started, and Carey didn’t offer to help. Let Bill do it all. Not because I’m lazy, he told himself, trying to pretend he could catch another ten minutes of sleep, but because he’s anal. He’s good with the details. Still, that didn’t seem to fly with his friend. Pushing up his wire-frame glasses with one hand as they threatened to slide down his face, Bill asked, “Carey, a little help here, is that too much to ask? Why am I doing all the work?” “I’m out of bed, aren’t I?” Carey shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable, but couldn’t seem to find a way to sit that didn’t make his ass go numb. “And I’m at work. Hence, I am working.” “Your logic astounds me.” Carey grinned and opened one eye to watch his friend. Bill’s mousy bangs spiked up from his pale forehead, not so much as a fashion statement but because he’d run his hands through his hair so often this morning, it now stood up on its own. Behind his thick glasses, his pale eyes glared at Carey with a baleful expression. Five years ago in high school, Carey didn’t spare nerdy guys like Bill the time of day. Funny how his circle of friends had changed now that he worked full time and didn’t get much chance to meet people other than his own co-workers. “What?” he asked with a shrug. Bill shook his head and bent over the table, where he lined up a row of free Omni pens. He tapped them flush against the edge of the table to make sure they were even and straight. Carey stifled a laugh. See? Anal. He thought maybe Bill’s boyfriend would agree. He’d have to remember to ask Tyreese the next time he saw him, just because he knew it would embarrass the hell out of his friend. To hear Tyreese joke, Bill liked it up the ass. “If you’re not going to help me…” Bill started. “I am helping.” Carey grinned. “I’m supervising. You’re doing great. Keep up the good work.” Bill shot him one of his patented go to hell looks, the ones he saved especially for him. “You can start checking the booths,” he said, placing a clipboard and pen on the table between them. “Make sure everyone’s here.” Carey glanced around the large convention hall and sighed dramatically. It wasn’t even six in the morning yet and already the room was crowded with vendors setting up their booths. Someone dressed like Wolverine prowled by the continental breakfast Shonda had set out earlier, and Carey thought he had seen Catwoman heading for the restrooms. Everyone else was busy unboxing cards and comic books and action figures. Everywhere he looked, he saw nothing but toys. And most of them were so damned expensive… Carey couldn’t believe some of the prices these people were trying to get away with here. Sinking farther into his chair, he muttered, “I hate comic book conventions.” He wasn’t going to get up and do any work until he absolutely had to, that was all there was to it. Let someone else walk around and take a head count of the freaks. Let Wolverine do it. The way he’s chowing down on those croissants, he’ll be busting out of those tights by noon. “You’re just pissed.” Bill laughed when Carey didn’t argue. Writing his name on a nametag, he stuck the sticker onto his T-shirt and balled up the backing to toss it at his friend. It fell pitifully short, landing atop the pens on the table. “Ever since I suckered you out of Vic and Matt number one—” “You didn’t sucker me,” Carey replied, but it was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I didn’t want it anyway.” Bill laughed and smoothed down his nametag. “Twenty bucks!” he cried. “When you’re walking around, make sure you take a good look at what it’s going for nowadays. I don’t want to rub it in or anything…” “Then shut up,” Carey told him. Bill laughed again and bent over the box, rummaging for the rest of the supplies. Across the room, Bill’s boyfriend Tyreese Jones entered the hall. A lanky, thin black man with short dreadlocks and sinewy bare arms, Tyreese wore the red vest and black pressed pants of a valet. For a moment he stopped and pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, squashing down those dreads as he looked around. When he spotted Bill, leaning down in front of the registration desk, a grin like oil slid across his face and he started in their direction. Carey watched his wolfish lope, the way he moved like water, the slight grin on his thin lips, and felt a twinge of jealousy stab in his chest. I want someone who looks at me like that. Not Tyreese, necessarily—the guy was a bit too intense for Carey’s liking. What he and Bill saw in each other, Carey would never know. But someone who snuck up on him, as Tyreese was doing now, who went out of his way to surprise him at times, who wrapped his arms around Carey and kissed him silly. Someone he could wake up beside, was that too much to ask? He was tired of sleeping alone. As Tyreese approached, he placed a finger to his lips to keep Carey quiet. Bill hadn’t seen him yet, he was so intent on laying out the freebies on the registration table. Carey waited until Tyreese reached out, hands inches from Bill’s hips, before he said, “Hey, Tyreese.” Bill turned, already smiling. “Hey, babe.” Tyreese glared at Carey as he eased his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “What’s your problem this morning, Thornton?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. With a laugh, Bill leaned back into Tyreese, rubbing against him. “He’s still pissed about that whole Vic and Matt thing.” “I am not.” Carey pouted. “Shut up, both of you. Go someplace else if you’re going to s*x each other up.” “You’re just jealous.” Tyreese kissed the back of Bill’s neck and raised his eyebrows. “You know you want me.” Carey rolled his eyes at that. As if. Tyreese wasn’t his type. He wanted someone with a body that wouldn’t quit, someone who didn’t know how hot he was so Carey didn’t have to fight his way to the boy. Someone other than anyone I’ll ever meet here. Was it five o’clock yet? Couldn’t this day be over with already? When Carey didn’t respond to his taunt, Tyreese tried another method. “You know that comic you bought from him?” he purred into Bill’s ear. Bill glanced at Carey and grinned. “There’s one over by the door, first printing. You should see what they have it priced at. Hey, Carey, wasn’t yours—” “Shut up,” Carey growled again. When Bill laughed, Carey glared at him, too. “Don’t even say it. I don’t want to know.” Bill extracted himself from Tyreese’s embrace. “Am I the only one working here?” “The show doesn’t open until eight,” Tyreese reminded him. “No people means no cars. What do you want me to do, stand out in the parking lot when I can be in here with you?” He nuzzled Bill’s neck, eliciting a grin from his boyfriend. His hands smoothed down Bill’s shirt, his fingers tucking it into the waistband of his jeans as he tried to move lower. “You guys stop it,” Carey muttered. “Get a room already.” Bill slapped Tyreese’s hands away. “You are jealous,” he said with a smile. “Of me and my boy. What a concept.” “I’m not…” Carey sighed. “Bite me. Both of you.” “Jan will,” Tyreese said, winking at someone past Carey. He turned and looked as his co-worker January Johnson came up behind him. A pretty girl with long brown curls, she now wore her hair pulled back into one thick braid. Tiny round blue sunglasses obscured her eyes, which were the same bright shade of aqua as her form-fitting tank top. Khaki shorts and clunky boots completed the outfit, and twin holsters hung low on her hips. The model scheduled to do Lara Croft had canceled at the last minute and someone seemed to have been able to talk Jan into playing the part. Must have been Shonda, Carey thought. She says jump, Jan asks how high. Tyreese purred, “Won’t you, Jan?” Jan smiled, perplexed. “Sure,” she agreed, sounding too damn chipper for six A.M. I don’t know what you’re talking about, her smile said, but I’m going to go with it. “Won’t I what? No, wait.” Carey laughed, which earned him a smack across the back of the head. Jan’s smile disappeared. “You guys are talking about s*x again, aren’t you? God, don’t you have anything else to think about?” “I’m talking about comic books,” Bill told her. He jerked a thumb at Tyreese and Carey. “They’re talking about sex.” “He’s talking about s*x,” Tyreese corrected, pointing at Carey, “but none of us what to hear it. When’s the last time you got a piece of ass, Carey? No, no, don’t rush. We’ve got what, two hours before the show starts? I’ll let you think about it.” “Why do I hang out with you losers?” Carey glared at Tyreese and wondered if he should actually get to work now. Anything to get away from this harassment. He knew he was the only one in their circle of friends who wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment—he didn’t need to have it rubbed in his face. Did they have to remind him he was lonely? In a loud whisper, Tyreese said, “It’s been so long, I bet you’ve got cobwebs.” Carey kicked out at him, rocking the chair dangerously beneath his weight, but Tyreese dodged his foot easily enough. “I’ll kill you.” With a laugh, Tyreese asked, “You want us to give you a refresher course? In, out, repeat as needed. Should I go over it again for you?” Carey surged to his feet, his cheeks hot with embarrassment. “Don’t make me—” But he heard the rapid clikclikclik of high heels and grabbed the clipboard from the table as Shonda cried out, “You guys! There’s work to be done here.” “Doing it,” Bill replied. Jan twirled the end of her braid and bit her lip as if she could simply disappear if she didn’t say a word. Tyreese let his sunglasses fall down over his face to cover his eyes and tried to look busy straightening the nametags and pens after Bill set them down. And Carey… “I was just warming up,” he said, flashing Shonda a bright grin. Despite her short stature and pleasantly plump figure, Shonda Murray was a firecracker. Whenever she stood with one hand on her hip, like she was doing now, Carey knew all hell was about to break loose. Her coffee-colored skin deepened to a cherry wood red when she got angry—Carey rarely saw her in any other mood. How a grade A b***h like Shonda managed to snag a sexy dyke like Jan, he’d never know. Beneath the stacked tower of microbraids that covered her head, her warm brown eyes flashed with warning. “Don’t play me like that, Carey,” she said, giving him a push. “You ain’t doing shit.” “He says he’s supervising.” Bill winked in his direction. “That’s my job,” Shonda cried. “Carey!” “Already gone.” He laughed, clutching the clipboard to his chest, and dodged the small fist flung after him. As he headed for the front of the hall, he glanced over the clipboard and sighed. Maybe I can find a place to hide out after I’m done. Check in all the vendors, then sneak into one of the empty rooms and go back to sleep. Six in the morning is way too early for my ass to be up.